Do you remember the movie Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck? Toward the beginning of the movie a star-gazer named Karl spots a gigantic asteroid hurling through space from his backyard observatory and calls NASA to report it.

He then tells the powers that be he wants to name it; after all, he discovered it. He goes on to say: “I wanna name her Dottie after my wife. She’s a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape.”

I think sometimes selling real estate can be like being married to Dottie.

If you feel that way — whether it be rarely, often or somewhere in between — you have to find motivation. Going through all of the ups and downs and stressful situations this business can throw at you without recognizing your big “why” can be a painful, miserable existence.

Here are three questions you should ask yourself (and regularly answer) when the going gets tough to help bring back some perspective:

1. Why real estate?

Is it because you love the freedom of being an independent contractor? Or do you simply love the fact that each day brings a new challenge?

Perhaps you realized there is no way on God’s green earth that you could make this much money doing anything else?

Go back to the beginning, and remember why you started in the first place.

2. What could you do to change your reality?

Now that you’ve reflected on why you chose this roller coaster career, try to determine what you could do on a daily basis to stay attached to that original thought and make it your reality.

Do you really have the freedom of being the independent contractor that you envisioned, or do you feel as though you now work more than anyone you know and have zero freedom?

Do you love the challenges and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants nature of this buisness, or do you lay awake at night wishing you had more systems in place so everything was still exciting and not so reactive?

Use this thought process with whatever your answer was above to affect change on a daily basis.

3. When will you start?

Practically no one likes this question; it’s confrontational and usually leads to having to do something outside of a comfort zone.

Not only do you have to commit to change, but you also have to commit to a timetable.

Procrastination is the enemy of progress we’ve heard time and time again. The longer you wait, the more your ideas will fade into obscurity. And believe me, a year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.

The next time your real estate career seems like it might be a distant relative to
Dottie, remember to find your motivation.

Go back, and reflect on your answers to the three questions above. And most of all, don’t forget, it’ll all be alright; (Ben Affleck will always be there to save you, right?).